Truck owners and operators know that each day on the road represents a test. Roadside inspectors and other law enforcement, electronic logging devices, employers, dash cams, and all sorts of tech under the hood constantly record thousands of data points about the smallest details of a driver's performance.
But what happens when drivers get to grade the facilities where they pick up and drop off? Digital freight brokerage Convoy's new 2021 Annual Freight Insights Report shed light on terabytes of data and 2.7 million facility rating reviews across the company's customer network to boil down what exactly drivers say about shippers and receivers.
The report has some surprises, but mostly reinforces the notion that detention time kills income and patience for drivers. Convoy's report falls against a backdrop of a historically strong freight market and an Overdrive poll showing that a plurality of owner-ops, about 35%, expect to make even more money than they did last year; about 30% expect to stay at the same high level; and the rest of the votes split between a slower year and general uncertainty.
Another important piece of context for Convoy's report comes from MIT, where scientists studying the freight industry recently told Congress that the perceived "driver shortage" really amounts to widespread driver underutilization. Basically, despite having 11 hours of possible drive time per day, most in the drivers' seat don't use more than 7 of those hours.
MIT's Dr. David Correll, a research scientist who spent the last four years observing and talking to 4,000 OTR drivers, told Congress that an extra 20 or so minutes of drive time a day could effectively reverse then-current shortage estimates calculated by the American Trucking Associations. Correll recommended that freight carriers police detention at shipper facilities by issuing letter grades to different facilities, much in the same way a restaurant gets and displays a grade from the health department.
With the idea of empowering drivers by giving them insight into conditions and shipper facilities in hand, Convoy's report makes for some pretty interesting reading.
